What’s the secret, Mr. Medenica?

Today’s editorial: Why won’t the Lottery Division come clean on a report it used in its review of a racino operator?

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What are the odds that the New York Lottery Division didn’t make a single mistake when in just a matter of months it helped pull together a multibillion-dollar deal that hadn’t gotten done in 10 years?

Don’t bother wracking your brain on that question. We don’t know the answer, and if the division has its way, no one ever will. How it does its job is none of the public’s business, or so the secretive folks at Lottery seem to think.

This public agency, which handles more than $5 billion a year, was entrusted to review one of the biggest deals in state government of late — the contract to run a casino at Aqueduct Race Track. The division disqualified two bidders and chose a third, Malaysia-based Genting New York LLC. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli signed off on Genting, too, on Monday, after looking over Lottery’s work.

But Lottery Director Gordon Medenica refuses to make public a Pinkerton investigation report that was part of Genting’s evaluation.

Mr. Medenica’s reason? Invoking a broad exemption under the state’s Freedom on Information Law, he says — with no explanation — that releasing the records would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Sorry, Mr. Medenica, but to borrow a phrase, it’s public business, not personal. Other states treat personal information associated with gambling as public information. Even assuming there might be some legitimate privacy issues, Mr. Medenica’s refusal to release the entire report is overkill. It strains the imagination to think that the entire report is of such a sensitive personal nature that the public can’t see a word of it. A few redactions should do the trick.

Is Lottery worried that it might indeed have missed some questions? Or has it gotten so used to taking New Yorkers’ money that it thinks they’re all a bunch of saps unfit to question an agency that reaps billions sowing illusions of wealth?

We’re not asking to peek under a scratch-off ticket, Mr. Medenica. We’re asking for a look at how your agency did its job on a contract that has a lot of zeros. Along the way to this deal there have been allegations of Chinese mob ties, investigations of possible conflicts among top state officials in an earlier contract, and, just recently, fines against two key Genting officials for running operations at a racetrack with another firm before they were licensed.

Just the sheer pressure to get the Aqueduct racino going after a decade of delays, and the allue of Genting’s $380 million up front payment to the cash-strapped state, are reasons enough for the public to ask for a look at how this came together.

New York will have to live with this deal for 30 years, Mr. Medenica. If you got it right, you should be proud to show off your work. If you didn’t, we’d sure like to know sooner than later. And we’d think that as a responsible public servant, so would you.